State authorities on Wednesday took over the investigation into a day care center in Chatham County that was shut down Tuesday by Savannah-Chatham police and Chatham County fire marshals.

The unlicensed business — named at different times George Town Child Care Center and George Town Fitness Center and located at 1190 King George Blvd. — was closed after investigators from the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services through the Department of Early Childcare and Learning advised the Savannah-Chatham Special Victims Unit they had opened an investigation.

Police officers on Tuesday accompanied county authorities as they delivered a cease and desist order issued by the Chatham County Recorder’s Court, said Julian Miller, police spokesman. At the business they discovered one adult and a 14-year-old caring for 11 children younger than 5 years old.

The adult locked the front door and fled the center as officers arrived, leaving all the children under the teenager’s watch, Miller said.

Two of the day care center’s operators, 47-year-old Kimberly Denise Emerson and 36-year-old Erica Denise McKinney, who is also known as Erica Hayward, were sentenced Tuesday in Recorder’s Court to 10 days in the Chatham County jail for violating a court order.

Miller said both women had substantial arrest records in Savannah. Emerson has been arrested for charges including prostitution, fraud and multiple drug offenses.

Records show the child care center had been closed in Richmond Hill, Miller said. Most of the children at the center were from that area.

On Wednesday, a Savannah-Chatham police officer was stationed at the center to assure that no parents dropped children off there.

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And, yet, all they got -- after three or four times being caught doing what they were told not to do, after endangering those children -- all the punishment they received was ten days in jail. Whoopee. Probably won't even spend half of that actually behind bars. No wonder people continue to commit crimes. There's no real consequences to doing so. Our courts need to step it up a little. Jeez.

If DFAC is involved, they have crimal records and had over 7 children under 18 onsite, they can be charged under federal child endangerment acts and for not keeping federally required background checks for sex offenders (even if they are not one, they have to have a national background check to confirm it), at least a few DECAL regulations, huge - I mean HUGE - state mandated fire marshal fines (no court need to issued them), and if they operated without a business license they did submit any local, state or federal taxes, so they now face tax evasion, as do any one who worked for them, and may render any childcare credit unclaimable from their clients.

In Georgia, harming children, either through poor education, poor housing, poor nutrition etc., is the norm. Animals have it even worse off. Georgia's civil rights record is terrible overall, there is no denying that. Georgia Burning! This is a backward, hillbilly state. But it can change.